The “flood wells” project implemented in Ethiopia, Ghana, Zambia and Mozambique – with support of the Partners voor Water tested a surprisingly little known option for accessing groundwater in the flood plains – the shallow tubewell. Manually drilled shallow tubewells are developed under a range of mainly low-cost techniques – augering, sludging, jetting – using a wide range of material (from bamboo to iron). They occur in the millions in South Asia, but by and large are yet to make their imprint in Sub Saharan Africa. They are particularly suited to the flood plains: they can be capped and buried during the inundation period, and can be recovered and used as soon as the flood have receded, thus utilizing valuable production time.

The aim of the project of the Spate Irrigation Network, implemented by MetaMeta, UNESCO-IHE and PRACTICA Foundation, was to increase the productivity of marginally used floodplains by introducing flood wells. Flood wells are a low-cost package of manually drilled tube wells and micro pump-sets that can provide smallholder farmers with access to shallow groundwater.

This video shows the potential of groundwater with tubewells in flood plains.